By Mr. Militant Negro
Source: The Militant Negro
This Thanksgiving, join me in celebrating but not in the traditional way you’re used to celebrating. In the video below, I suggest 2 ways of celebrating with The Standing Rock Sioux Nation, The Water Protectors and The Oceti Sakowin to show unity and solidarity.
From The Raw Story:
Broken treaties, cultural genocide and murder: Here are 5 ways the US has ‘given thanks’ to Native Americans
The urban legend about Thanksgiving is that the Native Americans helped save the Pilgrims who had a rough start to their settlements. Once they had a bountiful harvest they invited their Native neighbors over for a nice dinner party to give thanks to them and to God. That story has been soundly refuted by actual accounts of the day, but for reasons passing in understanding, we still celebrate the holiday as we perceive it went down.
After that, however, the friendly relationship between Natives and white settlers was over, and what followed was 300 years of some of the most heartbreaking and disgraceful actions the United States has ever committed.
While there are hundreds, here are 5 huge ones:
1. Stolen Land
From the day we landed in 1492 until even today, Native Americans are still fighting over land rights.
A Proclamation was signed by King George III of England in 1763, prohibiting any English settlers from pushing further west than the Appalachian Mountains and anyone already there would be required to move back east. Even across the ocean the King knew there were tensions between Natives and settlers. Unfortunately, the King had no real way of enforcing it and 13 years later the Colonies filed the Declaration of Independence and the war with England was on.
One of the worst and most disgusting things happened in the 1829 decision by the Supreme Court in Johnson v. M’Intosh. The court ruled that the U.S. Government could sell Native American land to non-Native people out from under the tribes. Believe it or not, they were actually trying to.
The decision began a set of rulings under the Marshall Court that outlined what is now referred to as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” It’s basically a set of western laws that “allowed” the legal framework to take land from aboriginals living on it because it was “discovered” by a European Christian monarchs. The logical conclusion that you can’t discover something if someone already lives there was basically thrown out thanks to the Marshall Court.
Who knows why they even bothered with the paperwork, it isn’t like they were going to be stopped anyway.
2. Andrew Jackson
“This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws…” – President Andrew Jackson, State of the Union 1829
There were plenty of presidents that did horrific things to Native Americans, but for the most part Washington and Jefferson honored the idea of Native sovereignty. President Andrew Jackson did not.
On May 26, 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which gave the power to the President to “negotiate” the removal of all Native Americans and force them West of the Mississippi River. Jackson signed it into law and the farce of “negotiations” began.
In 1831, Georgia tried to pass a law that prevented Native Americans from being within the borders of their state. In 1833, Florida actually passed the same law. The Cherokees took Georgia to court and demanded an injunction to prevent the forced removal of the tribe from the state. In Cherokee v. Georgia The Supreme Court ruled that the tribal lands were not sovereign and were essentially a ward of the federal government.
But one year later in Worcester v. Georgia, a missionary working on Cherokee lands was arrested. He sued the State of Georgia claiming that the state had no legal authority on Native soil, that they were sovereign lands. The Supreme Court ruled that the tribes were sovereign and that Georgia had no legal authority.
You would have thought that the 1832 legal battle would have been the major way that the tribes were saved from governments violating laws and treaties left and right, but no. Jackson proposed to the Cherokees Tribe that they move to Oklahoma (then called Indian Territory). The Cherokee said no.
Jackson didn’t care. Between 1830 and 1850 he ordered the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, Creek and Seminole people. It was called the Trail of Tears because so many people suffered from death, disease, starvation, exposure and more than 10,000 died on the way.
3. Re-Education and Cultural Genocide
Natives were considered savages when they fought back against the government attempting to steal their land, kill their people and force them to move. Those that were marched to what is now Oklahoma were considered the “5 Civilized Tribes” because they didn’t fight back the way many others did. They agreed to assimilate into some white culture for fear of being killed by the government.
But the U.S. government took it a step further when they started opening up boarding schools where Native children were sent and taught how to be Christian, relinquish their heritage, forget their traditions and act more “white.”
Richard Pratt was an Army Officer when he began building the schools that would teach Native children. He said he developed the idea while in “an Indian prison.” His philosophy, he described, was simple “Kill the Indian … Save the Man.” By killing the Native American traditions and upbringing in children, they hoped to begin ridding the country of what they considered to be the “savage” behavior.
Many of these children encountered what can only be described as abuse. They were beaten and put in isolation until they’d submit to the ways of white people.
4. Broken Treaties
Over 500 treaties were made with Native American tribes over the last several hundred years and over 370 of which had to do with land. All were broken or changed.
As CJ says in the video “How do you keep fighting these smaller injustices when they’re all from the mother of injustices?”
5. Murder
USA Committed Genocide Against Native Americans
MICHAEL MOORE: It’s not envy, it’s war, and it is a class war, and it’s a war that has been perpetrated by the rich on to everybody else. I mean, the class war is one they started. The mistake they’ve made, just to deal with the racial part of this, is their boot has been on the necks of people of color since we began. This is a nation founded on genocide and built, built on the backs of slaves. Alright?
So, so we started with a racial problem. We went, we tried to actually eliminate one entire race, and then we used another race to build this country actually quite quickly as a new country into a world power. This country never would have had the wealth that it had had it not had slavery for a couple of hundred years. If it had had, if it had had to pay people, if it actually had to pay people to build America, you know, we might just be at that point in Utah where we’re joining the two rails together maybe at this point right now.
From the moment that Columbus “discovered” a place that already existed, Native Americans began to die. Whether from “Old World” diseases like small pox and measles, battles with government soldiers or outright murder, the population declined by 96 percent.
American historian David Stannard argued in his book American Holocaust that the annihilation of the Native Americans from 76 million on both American continents to just a quarter-million “in a string of genocide campaigns,” that killed “countless tens of millions” was by far the largest genocide in world history.
Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, wrote to Colonel Henry Bouquet at Fort Pitt:
“You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians [with smallpox] by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method, that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”
The intentional use of “germ warfare” to “extirpate this execrable race” is nothing more than brutal, hateful and horrific mass murder. Our country should be ashamed.
Even hundreds of years later, tribes are still fighting many of these same battles. Just last month, the federal government raided a Native American university that was growing a legal hemp crop as part of a pilot project under the Farm Bill.
The Lakota Tribe has been particularly hard hit. They have been fighting to preserve their land against the threat of the Keystone XL pipeline which the tribe argues would have caused an increase in the number of health and safety problems.
They’ve also had run-ins with local law enforcement and liquor stores that locate just outside dry tribal lands. At the same time their children have experienced appalling and cruel racism and outright assault from fellow South Dakota residents.
What we owe the Native Americans is a more complicated question, but for sure it begins with a greater respect and extends well beyond the limited reparations we’ve given them over the years. Perhaps it begins with the reclaiming of holidays like Columbus Day and Thanksgiving which have done nothing but perpetuate stereotypes and gloss over the history of violence and broken promises.
Happy Native American Heritage Month!
Thank you The Raw Story & SARAH K. BURRIS
American Indian Activist Russell Means Powerful Speech, 1989
Legendary Russell Means harshly criticizes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian leadership of reservations. One of a kind, RIP November 10, 1939 — October 22, 2012
Russell was an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of American Indian people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.
Russell Means has lived a life like few others in this century — revered for his selfless accomplishments and remarkable bravery. He was born into a society and guided by a way of life that gently denies the self in order to promote the survival and betterment of family and community. His culture is driven by tradition, which at once links the past to the present.
Russell Means was once called the “biggest, baddest, meanest, angriest, most famous American Indian activist of the late 20th century.”
He led a 71-day armed standoff in 1973 against federal agents at Wounded Knee, a tiny hamlet in the heart of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.
It is considered to be one of his most famous act of defiance, however, occurred at Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. Responding to the numerous murders perpetrated by puppet tribal governments and the extreme conditions of oppression, the takeover at Wounded Knee revisited the sight of the American Indian massacre at the hands of U.S. soldiers in 1890.
Ever vigilant for his cause, Russell has been lauded by the international community for his tireless efforts.
Later, he used film as a vehicle for his advocacy, thus enabling him to use different means to communicate his vital truths. Through the power of media, his vision was to create peaceful and positive images celebrating the magic and mystery of his American Indian heritage.
In contemplating the fundamental issues about the world in which we live, he was committed to educating all people about our most crucial battle-the preservation on the earth.
Means joined “The Longest Walk” in 1978 to protest a new tide of anti-Indian legislation including the forced sterilization of Indian women. Following the walk, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution saying that national policy was to protect the rights of Indians, “to believe, express and exercise their traditional religions, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.”
Russell Means has been called the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse by the Los Angeles Times and recognized as a natural leader with a fearless dedication and indestructible sense of pride.
He took pride in having instituted programs for the betterment of his people: notable, the Porcupine Health Clinic (the only non government funded clinic in Indian Country) and KILI radio, the first Indian owned radio station.
Today, one of his principle goals has been the establishment of a “Total Immersion School”, which is based on a concept created by the Maori people of New Zealand, where children are immersed in the language, culture, science, music and storytelling of their own people.
Russell wanted to adapt this total immersion concept to the Indian way of life and philosophy which is taught from a perspective that will nurture a new generation of proud children educated in the context of their own heritage.
Russell Means has devoted his life to eliminating racism of any kind, and in so doing he leaves a historical imprint as the most revolutionary Indian leader of the late twentieth century.
Russell’s commitment to uplift the plight of his people escalated when he served as director of Cleveland’s American Indian Center.
It was there he met Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and embarked upon a relationship that would rocket them both into national prominence.
“If I want my people to be free, Americans have to be free.” –Russell Means
‘America is a stolen country’
Alcoholism, unemployment and suicide are problems associated with Native American reservations in the US. But a new generation of young activists are dedicating themselves to a brighter future. Benjamin Zand from the BBC’s Pop-Up team is on a reservation in South Dakota — in the heart of America’s midwest.
Right now, here today, our Native American brothers & sisters are being persecuted for being who they are.
The Standing Rock Sioux And The Water Protectors
The treatment of the Native American Tribes who are standing united to protect THEIR Tribal lands, THEIR drinking water supply AND THEIR sacred burial grounds, are unacceptable, disgusting, disappointing and inhumane.
For A History of Native Americans Protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline & A Timeline, visit….
http://www.motherjones.com/environmen…
It’s time we stand united with The Native American Tribal Nations. It’s time we stop celebrating Thanksgiving, a racists holiday that actually celebrates the massacre and genocide of 100 MILLION indigenous people.
https://twitter.com/MrNegroMilitant/status/799835277988610048
People Of Color all over The United States Of America should unite and stop celebrating a holiday that glorifies the massacre of human life.
Water Protectors. Black Friday. Charity. Kindness. Focus. Action.
Welcome to My Monday morning rants, raves & concerns. This voice video contains My thoughts on a plethora of issues, all current events and subjects we SHOULD ALL be pondering.
This is a link to The Jedi Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBC3…
This is a link to the explanation where “Black Friday” comes from and what it means:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4O5_…
Stand In Solidarity With The Standing Rock Sioux, The Water Protectors and The Oceti Sakowin.
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It doesn’t stop there. Look close enough and you may see it in places you’d never believe.
^Best pic I have for now. Will do a better version when I get back from a conference I have to attend this week.
After the Crash 